Meridian Conversations
An international gathering to celebrate now. We will also be imagining and creating an exciting future. Welcome to the Meridian Project. The optimists time machine is waiting for you to get on board!!
Where: E146 degrees 33‘ 9“, ‘Arcadia’, Birrego, 90 km west of Wagga Wagga
When: Fri 30th, Sat 31st July and Sun 1st August 2010 (come for 1, 2 or 3 days)
What will we be doing?: Workshops & farm tours on bio-char, carbon sinks, climate change, solar energy, regenerative agriculture. Performance workshop, kids space, music, art and lots of chill out time.
What to bring: We have a camping site with communal cooking area so bring tent or swag, food to share, warm clothes, musical instruments, plenty of optimism!
Contact Jim Rees mebionkern@yahoo.co.uk ph 0411417956
or Graham Strong eutaxia@harboursat.com.au ph 0428598656
MORE INFORMATION ON EVENT TO FOLLOW any enquiries contact above.
What is the Meridian Project?
In Australia, in the Murray-Darling Basin, in the Riverina, in Wiradjuri country, in Narrungduhray country, now, in 2010, we face some challenges. Climate change, social fragmentation, environmental degradation, biodiversity loss. But also some opportunities because what we have is the ability to imagine and create. This can never be taken away. It’s time to get stuck in and use our grey matter and our hands…in the dirt…literally! But its time for a new approach, a multidimensional approach, one that is truly exciting, that everyone wants to be part of and that might actually work. Welcome to The Meridian Project. It’s a locally inspired land art experiment but a whole lot more.
Arcadia’ is a farming property 30 kms south east of Narrandera and 90 kms west of Wagga Wagga. The property managers of ‘Arcadia’ are constantly developing & refining regenerative agricultural practices suited to local conditions. A shift away from the command and control based agri-Industrial approaches. Energy inefficient, polluting, destructive the 19th century paradigms still dominate today but face impending collapse as the world begins its downward ride over the crest of the peak oil and phosphate curves. Like dinosaurs, these systems and those at the levers are interesting to look at, powerful, cute (in a plastic child’s toy kind of way), a bit scary, entertaining, but extremely unintelligent and ultimately doomed. Glued to their immediate gratifications of cycad or carrion, the Cretaceous creatures were oblivious to the impending comet as it approached the outer atmosphere 65M years ago. Mirroring the same lack of agricultural imagination I cite as an example, anyone can sit at home watching their brand new 3D TV, munching on junk food, using fossil fuels like there’s no tomorrow or they can choose a modern future and avoid a reptilian finale. Apart from a legion of 4 year old boys worldwide, who wants to be dinosaur??? Who do you want to be?
So what is it then?
Over the last 12 years, ‘Arcadia’ has been demonstrating its farming practices and biodiversity restoration projects to an audience of farmers, scientists, and students. Coincidently, the property has in recent years attracted many people with a strong interest or profession in the arts and humanitarian fields. The experience at ‘Arcadia’ has been one of integration of ideas and disciplines. About 2 years ago the question arose: ‘How do we take this integration of people & ideas to a new level?’ It was at this moment The Meridian Project was born. It’s a very simple idea yet potentially amazing and powerful. It goes something like this:
• Take a line of longitude, a meridian.
• Choose one that passes through the property, perhaps passing through a region where we can physically mark the line in some way if we so wish.
• Map the line. The meridian we have chosen at ‘Arcadia’ is 146 degrees, 33 minutes and 9 seconds east.
Just by doing these 3 simple things we have instantly achieved the following:
• Created a reference for juxtaposition (a ‘culture jam’) in the landscape because the roads, farms, paddocks are all surveyed to magnetic north, whereas meridians are true north (12 degrees west of magnetic north) Any land art that we physically created that is symmetrical to the meridian will be highly contrasted in its surroundings making it even more visible from an aerial perspective than it would otherwise be.
• Formed a relationship with thousands of places right around the entire planet that happen to share our chosen longitudinal position. We have a reason to open communication, share a connection with places and people in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Marianas Islands, Japan, and Brazil, not to mention a huge tract of country within Australia. Think of this as ‘the excuse’, a stranger has tripped over their shoelace as you pass in a crowded city street, you stop help them up, get into a conversation. Its either goes on from there, you become friends for life or the exchange ends politely within 20 seconds and you never see that person again or think about them. BUT the meeting happened, and it would not have happened without the reason. The Meridian is a reason. That’s all. Very simple.
• You are communicating in an internationally recognized language. Geographic datum knows no borders or boundaries; one can not be prejudiced for speaking it.
Things get a little more interesting as physical art is created on the ground, marks are made, structures are built and dirt is moved. The meridian evolves from a philosophical concept to having a physical form. As of June 2010, 2 large circles symmetrically orientated on the meridian have been marked in the ground at ‘Arcadia’ using earthmoving equipment. The outer circle is 1900 metres in circumference and the inner circle around 400 metres. By August 2010, 10,000 trees will be planted on the circles in order to further reinforce or contrast what will become the central meridian motif. Also the line will be extended 800 metres further to the north of last survey point and physically marked using deep ripping and application of biochar. (Biochar application to soil can alter plant growth response on that soil. It has long lasting effects, so adding a point of contrast on that section of the meridian)
Once a year we will hold a festival called ‘Meridian Conversations’ where people from everywhere will be invited for a long weekend of workshops, hands-on projects, intellectual discussion, fun and conviviality. Science & Ecology, Music & Art, Sociology, will theme participation centered on the kinds of futures we need to both imagine and build, right now, to not just get us all through the next 30 – 50 years and beyond, but to allow us to thrive. The festival will be an important part of the project calender, but we will be encouraging community engagement with the Meridian Project all year round. This could take many forms i.e. filmmakers, musicians, artists using the line concept and motif to inspire creative work. Farmers, agriculturalists will continue to visit the property and contribute to the on-going development of ecologically and socially embedded farming systems.
Its very simple idea, yet potentially amazing and powerful. We live in very exciting times to be embarking on such a cultural journey. Its time to invite Whanu into the canoe!
Initially, contrast and physical design will most likely focus on the section of the meridian which passes through ‘Arcadia’. But as this idea evolves and becomes something that attracts a wider interest, we will see movement and engagement to the north and south. Tracking the meridian, being invited into people’s backyards, a culture reinforcing itself over time across the entire planet, linking this place, carrying meaning, a message of international connection to all places on or near its path. It’s a reason to make contact, to make conversation, to link, to cooperate, and to just get on with what needs to be done. Socially, environmentally, economically.
Language, Human Values & the Environment
A key goal of Meridian is to give substance to ideological notion of concepts (‘weasel’ words, eco-rat) such as ‘triple bottom line’. It seeks to dispel common misconceptions about human beings place within the natural environment, amongst themselves, and the accounting of economic value. As I write this protesters are lining up in Spring Street, Melbourne, outside the Victorian Parliament. They are demanding better pay conditions for Care workers, denied ‘professional’ status yet the work they do is absolutely critical, can demand odd and/or long hours, requires high degrees of experience, skill and an unquantifiable quality; empathy. Economists don’t like human values, as they are too hard to measure so we just…..well….don’t worry about them! And if we don’t feature them, talk about them, in policy, economic forecasts, balance sheets etc. it’s just another lost opportunity to remind a large mass of people that human values exist and are important.
Often, policy makers talk about the need to ‘Strike a balance between the needs of the environment and jobs’. In short, this represents flawed economic accounting because the environment is treated as a subset of the economy instead of the other way around. The reason for this is in part politicaly motivated, but also rooted in a deeply culturally embedded unconscious assertion that humans are not part of the ecology of the planet. ‘Balance’ is a problematic word if we are in agreement that real action is needed to avert ecological and climate change disasters. It implies compromise, and when I think compromise I think ‘bad marriage’ and ‘both sides losing’. Carefully chosen language often has the effect of silencing debate. I.e. the word ‘Drought’ implies impotence, that nothing can be done. End of conversation. When it does rain, rural newspapers quote farmers:
“The recent rain was an absolute Godsend” (The Land, 3/6/2010)
….As though our fate and destiny is entirely in the hands of a ‘God’ and not our personal responsibility?
The Meridian Project seeks to inspire and motivate people to take charge, to recognize personal responsibility and act. Not because they should but because they want to.
What’s New is Old – Land Art
Using the chosen meridian as a symmetrical basis for land art is, in part, inspired by ‘Geoglyph’ culture made famous by the Nazca Lines in southern Peru. These became widely known in the late 1920’s, when commercial air travel was introduced between Lima and the city of Arequipa.
Around 200 BC, the Nazca culture emerged out of a previous culture known as the Paracas settling along river valleys, cultivating crops such as cotton, beans, tubers, lucuma (a kind of fruit) and a short eared form of corn. The Nazca culture relied entirely on a weather cycle which seasonally delivered high rainfall on the western slopes of the Andes, due to a high pressure system moving into the north. The precipitation feeding ten rivers which then flowed to the fertile region where the Nasca people lived. A perfect place for human settlement, but also a very high risk one, as when the same weather system called the Bolivian High, moves to the south, rainfall decreases and the rivers can run dry. Echoes of ENSO and our country, the Murray-Darling Basin.
Many people have speculated about the Nasca lines and what they meant, why they were created. Depictions of giant hummingbirds, lizards, spirals, hands, fish. All elaborately constructed by hand, it’s believed that all those in the community participated. Perhaps used for ceremony, worship to deities, perhaps the construction process being a ritualistic activity, an art form to facilitate social cohesion and order.
The Meridian project is about exploring cultural diversity and richness and merging this exploration with science, the study and understanding and appreciation of ecology, art and technology. It’s only by looking at and engaging with ‘The Whole’ can we possibly develop the society and the political framework underpinning it that collectively can have any hope of living in a world under climate change. ‘Living’ is actually an inadequate vision, we want to thrive. Meridian is about making up a new culture as we go, by looking to the past, going deep into place and projecting vision to the future.
LET’S GO FOR A RIDE!
Cynicism is a disease, Meridian is a cure
